Running 1 candidate in 3 upcoming races would cede a spending advantage to Liberals. Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet is laughing at the idea of fielding "fake" candidates in Toronto — even if it means ceding a financial advantage to the Liberals in a tight Montreal-area byelection. "We at the Bloc Québécois are funded by citizens, out of pure conviction...
Opposition parties from across the political spectrum are demanding clarity from the Liberal government on its position on the U.S.-Israel war on Iran as they prepare for a debate in the House of Commons Monday evening. The Prime Minister's Office has said Mark Carney won't be taking part in a take-note debate about the conflict and its impact on Canadians...
Calgary Chamber of Commerce head says organization’s inbox inundated with concern. Ongoing discourse around the prospect of Alberta separation is emerging as a top concern for Calgary businesses, half of whom say the debate is already impacting the local economy, a new Calgary Chamber of Commerce survey suggests. In a survey the chamber released Monday, 28 per cent of respondents...
As the federal government seeks to bolster its domestic defence industry, Industry Minister Melanie Joly announced more than $900 million for defence innovation in Canada, including money for drone technology with Bombardier. Joly made the announcement in Ottawa on Monday at the National Research Council (NRC), alongside National Defence Minister David McGuinty and Secretary of State (Defence Procurement) Stephen Fuhr...
The Liberal government has nominated a senior official from the national financial intelligence agency as Ottawa's next fiscal watchdog. Wayne Long, secretary of state for financial institutions, tabled a nomination Monday asking MPs to approve Annette Ryan to take on the currently vacant role of parliamentary budget officer. The nomination is for a seven-year term.
Over the past year, one of the more revealing questions in Canadian politics hasn’t simply been who people support, but what kind of leadership they believe the country needs. When voters talk about politics today, they often focus on policy problems like housing, affordability, or economic growth. But underneath those debates is something more psychological. Leadership is not evaluated in...
A new national survey from Liaison Strategies shows the federal Liberals have established a significant 14-point lead over the Conservatives among decided and leaning voters with 44% support. The Weekly Federal Tracker shows the Conservatives in second place at 30%, followed by the NDP at 9%, the Bloc Québécois at 6%, and the People’s Party at 4%. Liaison surveyed a...
Mark Carney repeatedly says he is prime minister of a new government, not simply a continuation of Justin Trudeau’s decade leading Liberals in power. New polling from the Pollara Strategic Insights firm suggests that more Canadians are buying the “new” title than those who don’t, especially among those who voted Liberal last year. Pollara shared the results exclusively with the...
It is progress that the Prime Minister’s Office is now letting Canadians know when Mark Carney speaks with President Donald Trump, but it would be much better if the read-out that followed didn’t subtract from the sum of human knowledge.
Prime Minister Mark Carney plans to travel to Norway on Friday to observe the Norwegian-led NATO Cold Response exercise above the Arctic Circle. Cold Response is run by NATO every two years and involves about 25,000 troops from 14 nations training together to perform land, air and sea operations in Arctic conditions. Canada, the United States, the U.K., Germany, Netherlands...
With less than three weeks to go before the New Democrats choose their next leader, Avi Lewis holds a towering fundraising advantage over his chief rivals, making him the odds-on favourite to win the contest. Filings to Elections Canada show that Lewis has raised $1,229,484 from 10,407 contributors, giving him a greater than two-to-one edge over his nearest competitor, Edmonton...
Monday is the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Smith is probably the best-known and least-read economist, which explains why he is so often misunderstood. For example, if you google “Father of Capitalism,” Smith’s name pops up, but neither his Wealth of Nations nor The Theory of Moral Sentiments uses the word “capitalism.” He did not preach the...
On March 9, the Honourable Wayne Long, Secretary of State for Financial Institutions, tabled the certificate of nomination in the House of Commons to ask members of Parliament to approve Annette Ryan as the next Parliamentary Budget Officer of Canada. Ms. Ryan, who currently serves as a deputy director at the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre, or Fintrac, is...
Three Toronto-area synagogues were hit by gunfire in the span of one week last week. No one was obtuse enough to express “shock.” These acts are not shocking when one Toronto synagogue has been vandalized 10 times in 18 months. When swastikas were spray-painted on three Jewish-owned businesses in Montreal – and on a synagogue in Winnipeg, and two in...
TORONTO—For the last week or two, any time the federal government has tried to explain what this country’s position actually is towards India, we haven’t come off looking great. There is a very simple explanation for this incoherence, but there is also a more alarming one, and I think that one is worth spending a minute thinking about. First, let’s...
After a few days of plaudits for sounding more mainstream, Poilievre reminds everyone he is a climate denier, and lacks an understanding of the global marketplace. The Trump administration has dented, but not ended, the drive towards emissions reduction. Capital investments in energy were expected to hit $3.3 trillion in 2025. Of every 3 dollars invested, 2 were going to...
Donald Trump’s third Gulf war will almost certainly decide the fate of his presidency and the Republican Party in the November congressional elections. As the conflict widens under the hardline leadership of Mojtaba Khamenei—the son and successor to Iran’s longstanding supreme leader—the humanitarian and global economic fallout are devastating. In an ironic twist, this colossal disaster may have just handed...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s response to war in the Middle East has so far seemed hasty, morally queasy, intellectually convoluted and—attempts at clarification, notwithstanding—continues to be deeply disappointing to many Canadians. His first statement, within hours of the beginning of hostilities, stopped just short of full-throated support for the United States-Israeli campaign, surprising from a prime minister who lectured the...
In the world of global diplomacy, the distance between a targeted mission and a regional conflict is often measured in days. For those of us who have lived and worked in the Middle East, watching the current escalation is not just a matter of tracking headlines. It is a visceral experience. My stomach is in knots because I know what...
The clearest attempt at a line of demarcation during Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's speech on Canada-United States relations was an apparent rejoinder to Prime Minister Mark Carney's insistence that a "rupture" has occurred. Quoting a John F. Kennedy hymn about the geography, history, economics and necessity that have brought Canada and the U.S. ever closer, Poilievre said the former president's...
More than two decades ago, the United States invited Canada to join in a new Middle Eastern misadventure. The invitation was premised on a big lie about Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien declined to participate. It’s not that he foresaw the disaster to come — but he had a team of good advisers, as...
I’ve covered a few wars, in the Balkans and the Middle East, and I’ve seen plenty of military officers (including senior Americans) explain how things are unfolding on the battlefield. In my experience they’re invariably professional, cool and calm. What they’re not is what the U.S. “secretary of war,” Pete Hegseth, displayed this week in a couple of briefings on...
Liberals leading in most parts of the country and in every demographic group. When you hear that Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives don’t want an election anytime soon, it might be due to the polling.
Let’s peek in on Mark Carney’s Iran war foreign-policy update, beamed to us all the way from Australia. Mr. Carney supported U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in a statement issued Saturday, and he still does, now in a different way, because the U.S and Israel probably did not act in keeping with international law, which is unfortunately part of...
Few decisions are more important for a Canadian prime minister than whether to support the United States on matters of war and peace. With such decisions, legacies can be made and unmade. Jean Chrétien offers a prime example. He’s been dining out on his refusal to join George W. Bush’s coalition of the willing in the Iraq war for decades...
No one will accuse Mark Carney of being a populist politician. But as he nears the one-year mark as prime minister, we’ve been getting some insights into how Carney is juggling the personal relations he has to manage on the world stage and also at home. It isn’t often that politicians go into that kind of detail, so Carney’s lessons...
In almost any context, one of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s major problems — and it’s one that he inherited, in fairness to him — is the state of the Canadian Armed Forces. Our military is too small to do all the jobs we need it to do. It lacks critical capabilities necessary for survival on the modern battlefield. Manpower shortages...
After a humiliating election defeat, multiple defections from his caucus and a widening lead in the polls for Mark Carney’s Liberals, Pierre Poilievre has finally decided to make some changes. He debuted the new look at a recent speech at the Economic Club of Canada, one in which he cited the writings of Marcus Aurelius, name-checked Pierre Trudeau in a...
One of the many things that could be said of the rules-based world order is that it was designed so that countries — including middle powers — would not have to rely on their wits, in the manner of a Hobbesian geopolitical Hunger Games, to survive in the face of hegemonic aggression. “The world will always be driven by great...
I begin writing today with a quotation from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. In a press conference Monday morning, Hegseth celebrated Israel and its strikes alongside the U.S., while he condemned “so many of our traditional allies who wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force.” In explaining the Trump doctrine of military...
The premier won’t have time to turn the economy around as the prospect of an election this year looms large. Spare a moment, if you will, for British Columbia Premier David Eby. Not long ago, the former Vancouver lawyer seemed to have it in the bag. He inherited the premiership and a budget surplus of $5.7-billion from the popular John...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says his party will focus on affordability and the cost of living in three critical byelections happening next month. “We will be running candidates on the platform of making Canada affordable at home and stronger at home,” Poilievre said while speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill on Monday. “We think that the number 1 issue in...
Oil prices continued to soar on Monday as the Iran war intensified, threatening production and shipping in the Middle East and pummeling financial markets. The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, surged to as high $119.50 per barrel early in the day but later was trading above $101 per barrel, up 9%. West Texas Intermediate, the...
The federal government is expected to nominate senior public servant Annette Ryan as the next Parliamentary Budget Officer, two sources say. The move would be a rejection of the advice from the Conservative Party, which had called for the person who recently acted as interim PBO to be hired permanently.
The Canadian government will face questions about its “confusing” stance on the Iran war when the House of Commons hosts a debate on the conflict tonight, according to former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy. “It’s still not clear about where Canada stands on the fundamental issue of the rule of law, which says aggression is an international crime,” Axworthy told...
Mark Carney’s government is slated to announce new investments Monday to strengthen Canada’s defence industrial capabilities, and part of the press briefing is expected to focus on Quebec’s flagship Bombardier. “The announcement will also contain positive elements for Bombardier, reflecting our continued contributions to Canada’s defence and aerospace capabilities,” the company said in a message sent to press agencies...
Liberals will need to win all 3 races to secure thin majority government. Prime Minister Mark Carney has called byelections in the Toronto ridings of University-Rosedale and Scarborough Southwest and the Quebec riding of Terrebonne — races the Liberals will want to win to secure a thin majority government. The byelections will be held on April 13, according to a...
Some Liberal MPs told The Hill Times that Prime Minister Mark Carney should have consulted his caucus before declaring Canada's support for the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. But B.C. Liberal MP Parm Bains says he's received positive feedback from Iranian-Canadians in his riding. Prime Minister Mark Carney declared his support for the deadly American-Israeli attack on Iran shortly after it...
Library and Archives Canada is planning deep cuts to its access to information division that will put at risk its ability to comply with access and privacy laws, the department has acknowledged in a document. The archives, or LAC, is the central storing house for historical records from across the federal government and is widely used by researchers and journalists...
Liberal House leader Steven MacKinnon says Prime Minister Mark Carney's government has proposed to debate the turmoil in the Middle East on Monday evening, following a weekend meeting of ministers that discussed the issue. Steven MacKinnon, who is also transport minister, said in a Sunday post on X the government has proposed to opposition parties that a debate on the...
Advocates are raising concerns about how job cuts will affect public servants in equity groups -- something the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat says it's not tracking. The federal government has committed to cutting the number of public service jobs by about 40,000 from a 2023-24 peak of 368,000 as it looks to find savings. Departments and agencies across the...
New Democrat membership hits 100k as race to replace Jagmeet Singh culminates with convention March 29. New Democrats can begin casting their vote online and by mail today for a new federal leader, with five candidates vying for the job to replace Jagmeet Singh. The NDP says its membership has increased to approximately 100,000 people, up from 60,000 in September...
A majority of Canadians say they want Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor removed from the line of succession to the British throne, a new poll shows. The poll, released Monday by Angus Reid Institute, shows an overwhelming 84 per cent of Canadians say they are in support of the move. The survey was conducted online from Feb. 24 to 26 among a randomized...
Saudi Arabia sharpened its warnings to Iran early Monday, telling Tehran it would be the "biggest loser" if it continues to attack Arab states. The Saudi statement came after a new drone attack apparently targeted its massive Shaybah oil field. The kingdom dismissed comments by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Saturday that Iran had halted its attacks on Gulf Arab...
Police and political leaders gathered outside a North York synagogue Sunday morning, vowing a “relentless” investigation and stronger protections for Jewish communities after gunfire struck two GTA locations this weekend. The update came just over 24 hours after bullets tore through the front doors of Shaarei Shomayim synagogue near Bathurst Street and Glencairn Avenue. The incident was one of two...
Wide leads in Quebec, Ontario, Atlantic and BC. But the numbers have tightened, a lot, in Alberta and Saskatchewan. PM Carney's travels to market Canada is one reason why. In an election held now, 46% would cast a ballot for the Carney Liberals, and 31% say they would vote for Poilievre’s Conservatives. The Liberals have opened up a large lead...
United States President Donald Trump’s efforts to reset how pharmaceutical firms negotiate drug prices with his government—and the consequences for countries including Canada—were recently discussed at an in-person meeting between pharmaceutical representatives, Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc, Health Minister Marjorie Michel, and Janice Charette, the newly appointed chief trade negotiator to the U.S.
The decades-long debate over whether Canada should create a CIA-style foreign spy agency has been coloured by pressure from allies, budgetary restraint and internal federal rivalries, a new study reveals Much of the discussion about Canada's foreign intelligence aspirations has taken place -- fittingly perhaps, given the subject matter -- in classified memos and behind closed doors in the halls...
It's clear U.S. president still wants territory due to its 'geopolitical location': Gov. Gen. Mary Simon. Although U.S. President Donald Trump's interest in taking over Greenland appears to have faded — at least publicly — Canada's Governor General says concern remains that the fight over the semi-autonomous territory isn't over yet. "Even though the threat has kind of gone to...
Plan formerly known as 'just transition' limited to previously announced policies. The Carney government's plan to protect jobs in the energy sector amounts to a list of existing policies that critics say aren't focused enough on those at risk of losing work. Previously called the 'just transition,' the new federal sustainable jobs action plan offers little in the way of...
Recently revised directive adds flash drives, smart watches to searchable devices. United States customs officers conducted a record number of searches of electronic devices last year of people travelling to the U.S., and a recent update to its directives adds new devices such as smart watches, SIM cards and flash drives to the list of things subject to search. Officers...
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe says Canada needs to separate its trade talks from its national security concerns when dealing with certain countries if it is serious about diversifying trading partners beyond the United States. Moe joined Prime Minister Mark Carney this week on the first leg of his Indo-Pacific trade tour to India, Australia and Japan. In India, Carney signed...
Valdez, Canada's Minister for Women and Gender Equality, will highlight Ottawa's commitment to gender equality and share best practices with international partners. This year's priority theme for the session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women focuses on strengthening access to justice for women and girls through inclusive legal systems and the removal of discriminatory laws and...
Edmonton driving the numbers, according to Abacus Data. The Conservative Party continues to hold the majority favour in what tends to be reliably-blue Alberta, but it has lost some support to the gain of the Liberals, according to a new poll. The Abacus Data poll suggests the Conservatives boast a 51-per-cent share of the intended vote in the province. That...
Jamil Jivani, a Conservative rookie member of Parliament, follows an American playbook to win over young men on college campuses. Jamil Jivani, a Canadian lawmaker who bonded with JD Vance at Yale Law School and delivered a Bible reading at his wedding, arrived at the University of Calgary on a recent winter evening — the latest stop on his tour...
Some New Democrats are worried the party could be wiped out in Quebec as its only MP in the province signals a possible exit, sources say. With Montreal-area MP Alexandre Boulerice “seriously” considering a jump to provincial politics, Quebec New Democrats fear they may not be able to hold on to the Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie seat he’s held since 2011, according...
The Liberals are taking steps to halt debate on their flagship anti-hate bill in committee to end a prolonged Conservative filibuster on removing a religious exemption to some hate speech laws. Conservatives have said they have been inundated with expressions of concern from religious leaders who fear Bill C-9 would limit religious freedom if it becomes law. But the Liberals...
New polling shows just under half of Canadians support the idea, but there are costs. Since taking office, Prime Minister Mark Carney has made his desire to cut Canada's economic dependence on the United States crystal clear. And along the way, he's referenced Europe as a top destination for Canadian goods. "As the most European of the non-European countries, Canada...
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada has not yet received requests from Persian Gulf states for military aid to help them defend against attacks from Iran. And, he suggested, these requests might not arrive. The Prime Minister spoke to journalists in Tokyo near the end of a two-day visit to Japan. Earlier this week, Canada’s Chief of the Defence Staff...
TOKYO -- While there should be "debate" in Canada about a social media ban for children, Prime Minister Mark Carney says he has not made up his own mind on the issue yet.
Prime Minister Mark Carney says Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor should be removed from the royal line of succession for his "deplorable" actions. Speaking to reporters in Tokyo, Carney says the actions that have caused him to be stripped of his royal titles "necessitate" his removal from the line of succession.
PHOENIX (AP) -- The Republican leader of Arizona's state Senate said Monday he has handed over records related to the 2020 presidential election to the FBI in the latest sign that the Trump administration is acting on the president's longstanding falsehoods about a race he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump promised that 2026 would be a bumper year for economic growth, but instead it has kicked off with job losses, rising gasoline prices and more uncertainty about America's future.
ATLANTA (AP) -- Battery company SK Battery America Inc. laid off nearly 1,000 workers at a manufacturing plant northeast of Atlanta on Friday amid automakers' changing electrification plans and uncertain consumer demand for EVs.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Israeli warplanes pounded Beirut and Tehran on Friday as Iran launched another wave of retaliatory strikes against Israel and Gulf countries. There was no sign of the war letting up on its seventh day, as U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to rule out negotiations with Iran and called for its "unconditional surrender."
Oil prices continued to soar on Monday as the Iran war intensified, threatening production and shipping in the Middle East and pummeling financial markets. The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, surged to as high $119.50 per barrel early in the day but later was trading above $101 per barrel, up 9%. West Texas Intermediate, the...
The Canadian government will face questions about its “confusing” stance on the Iran war when the House of Commons hosts a debate on the conflict tonight, according to former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy. “It’s still not clear about where Canada stands on the fundamental issue of the rule of law, which says aggression is an international crime,” Axworthy told...
Saudi Arabia sharpened its warnings to Iran early Monday, telling Tehran it would be the "biggest loser" if it continues to attack Arab states. The Saudi statement came after a new drone attack apparently targeted its massive Shaybah oil field. The kingdom dismissed comments by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Saturday that Iran had halted its attacks on Gulf Arab...
The United States and Israel do not have a "blank cheque" in their bombing campaign in Iran, and are still bound by international law, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said on Friday, as the war in the Middle East approaches the seven-day mark.
The Trump administration is confronting mounting discontent from allies in the Persian Gulf who have complained they were not given adequate time to prepare for the torrent of Iranian drones and missiles bombarding their countries in retaliation for strikes launched by the U.S. and Israel. Officials from two Gulf countries said their governments were disappointed in the way the U.S...
On October 9, 2025, the Quebec government, through Minister of Justice Simon Jolin-Barrette, tabled Bill 1, entitled the Québec Constitution Act, 2025, in the National Assembly. This unilateral action was taken against the backdrop of a deadlock in the multilateral process of negotiating amendments to the Canadian Constitution and reflects a recent trend toward constitutional unilateralism that is developing not...
Canada’s criminal justice system is failing its most basic test: keeping the public safe. A new report from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute reveals rising crime, falling clearance rates, and a bail system widely seen as broken. The result is a struggling justice system increasingly derailed by delays and struggling to deliver safety or accountability – eroding the trust of the Canadians...
Canada’s economic landscape is profoundly changing. A shifting trade environment, global efforts to reduce emissions and other structural trends are reshaping industries and job requirements. With these shifts, opportunities arise, but so do uneven risks and impacts. Certain communities are disproportionately susceptible to the workforce disruption these changes will bring. In this Policy Brief, we focus on mass layoffs and...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
For a moment there, it looked like Mark Carney would be the torchbearer for countries opposed to Trump’s big power politics. Now, not so much. In fact, it seems Prime Minister Carney is ready to embrace the “end of the international rules-based order” rather than oppose it – thanks to the confusing and contradictory statements by the Canadian government following...
On Thursday, the Liberal government finally got around to asking ordinary Canadians how to fix the country’s premier transparency law, the Access to Information Act. The Act, dating from 1983, empowers citizens to hold governments to account through requests for internal information.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was a monster. For close to thirty years, he presided over a police state that violated human rights at home and exported terror to the world. Now he is dead, crushed by the American assault on Iran that flattened his compound and sparked a regional war. From Tehran to Toronto, thousands of Iranians are celebrating...
His father, mother, and wife were among those killed in the opening moments of the Iran War. Now he's the new Supreme Leader - will his term be all about revenge? That's how we start this week's commentary from Dr. Janice Stein of the Munk School at the University of Toronto.
Canada is home to one of the largest Iranian communities outside of Iran in the world. There are over 280,000 Iranian Canadians living here. The rallies they’ve held in recent months have been some of the largest that Canada has ever seen. According to the CBC last month, 350,000 people took to the streets in Toronto. And that was before...
In the immediate aftermath of the US-Israel strikes on Iran, Prime Minister Mark Carney came out with a declaration of support, which later developed into what he calls a 'regretful' position due to the lack of international order.
More than a week has passed since Israel and the United States launched a massive attack on Iran — a move the prime minister says Canada supports "with regret." How does that stance square with the vision Carney laid out in Davos? Former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations Bob Rae weighs in on the Canadian view and shares concerns...
